


All about that ace

by HapaxLegomenon



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, Feelings, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 14:43:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6428395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HapaxLegomenon/pseuds/HapaxLegomenon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Hinata, it started with a single spike.<br/>For Asahi, it took a little longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All about that ace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueMinuet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMinuet/gifts).



> For Mels, I hope this makes you smile.

It started with a single spike.

Hinata admitted (begrudgingly) that Kageyama’s spikes were strong, and (even more begrudgingly) that Tsukishima’s were pretty good, too.  Tanaka and Daichi, of course, were great.  But nothing compared to that first spike from Asahi.

That’s an ace, Hinata thought to himself, awe-struck, hair still ruffled from the passing speed of the ball.  It was one of the fastest, hardest strikes he’d ever seen, and yet, it was like slow motion – he saw the way Asahi pushed off the ground, concentrating all of his energy in the balls of his feet and stretching up, up, towards the top of the net and further, to the sky.  He saw the deadly focus in those dark eyes and the way everything paused in midair, for just a second, for a second that lasted forever, arm outstretched, the ball fitting perfectly in the semicircular curve of his hand and his fingers, and then rocketing back to Earth like a thunderclap.

It was amazing.  It was breathtaking.  And all Hinata could do was blink, until the world caught up with him and he exploded like an overwound spring with a wordless screech of delight.

*

“Eh!?”  Asahi flinched and stumbled on his landing, crashing backwards onto the court.  He stared at the tiny little first year from between his legs with an expression of mingled alarm and confusion.  Nishinoya laughed somewhere behind him, loud and brassy, and slapped him on the back so hard he almost jackknifed his forehead against his knee.

“Nishinoya…” he mumbled, half admonishment, half resignation, but he couldn’t help returning the crazy grin with a small one of his own.

“That’s our ace!”  Nishinoya declared, pulling Asahi to his feet with a wiry arm and giving him another bruising whack.  Asahi blushed in spite of himself and rubbed at the back of his head.  Nishinoya was as enthusiastic as always – good to know some things never changed.  Some people didn't change.

He looked at his hand, where the ball had left a slight red mark.  His palm was still tingling from the impact.  It felt good.  That, too, hadn't changed.

It felt less-good a moment later, when Sugawara gave him a celebratory karate chop to the shoulder, but, well.  He probably deserved that.

“Um!” someone yelled, high-pitched and excited, and Asahi flinched again. 

“That was so cool!  Ace!”  The little first year – Hinata, he remembered – was staring up at him with starry eyes, every inch of him poised as if he was ready to take flight – leaned forward on his toes, legs and neck stretched out straight, arms held slightly aloft at his side.  Asahi thought for sure that if he happened to catch a breeze, he’d be airborne in a second. 

“Cool!” Hinata said again.  His arms flapped (Asahi was surprised that it didn’t result in an immediate take off, and then he felt like an idiot).  “So cool!”

Asahi felt himself shrinking under the litany of praise – if not particularly original, it won points for sheer enthusiasm.  It was a little uncomfortable; they were practically strangers.  How could Hinata be so excited about someone he barely knew?  He didn’t know Asahi at all, he didn’t know that the last spike – the first spike – wasn’t a complete fluke. 

After that last game, after his profound failure against Date Tech, Asahi was pretty certain that it was, indeed, a fluke.  And he was absolutely certain that he didn’t deserve the look of utter admiration that Hinata was giving him.  Something dark and heavy coiled in his stomach and he stared upwards, at the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling.  To avoid looking at his teammates.

“Oi!” someone yelled – blond hair, looked whatever the adult equivalent of a hooligan might be, if Asahi was honest, but he’d been acting like he was in charge, did Karasuno get a new coach while he was away?  He was intimidating enough, anyway.  Was that how people saw him?  Yikes.  No wonder they thought he was a thug.  At least he didn't have bleached hair.  Did thugs have bleached hair?  “Enough of that, get back to the game!”

This guy was a lot like Daichi.  Scary.

Hinata gave him another wide, toothy grin, and Asahi smiled a little awkwardly in return, and then the game resumed.

And Asahi was welcomed back into the Karasuno Volleyball Club with open arms.

Suga had been right, Asahi realized.  Their new first years were certainly… something.  Impressive, yes, sure, but, still unpolished.  Asahi wasn’t quite sure how to act around them.  He didn’t quite understand the boy who was even taller than him and came to every practice but never once acted like he wanted to be there, and he thought he almost understood the gangly kid, the one who didn’t seem to know what to do with his long limbs just quite yet and who followed along behind his friend with unerring loyalty.  He certainly didn’t understand Kageyama, how he managed to set with such precision and speed or how he somehow managed to be even more terrifying than Daichi.  And he definitely, certainly did not understand Hinata.

 

Asahi’d thought he had a handle on small, loud teammates with big, loud aspirations.  That’s what he’d thought.  And then Hinata came along, all almost-one-hundred-and-sixty-three centimetres of explosive sunshine, and Asahi roundly did _not_ know how to deal with him.

 “Asahi-san!”  Asahi was trying, he was trying so very hard, to stop jumping whenever he heard his name screeched like a kookaburra from somewhere near his shoulder.  He wasn’t entirely successful every time, but then again, he was getting a lot of practice – he’d be there soon.  Practice made perfect, and all that.  Right.

“How do you jump so high?  You’re like _whum_ –” Hinata puffed up his cheeks and spread his legs in a frog-squat “– and then, _gyaah!_ ”  He sprung up like a jack-in-the-box and Asahi took a quick half-step back to avoid an unfortunate sneaker to the stomach.  Hinata landed lightly and immediately bounced up onto the balls of his feet.  He looked up at Asahi with an expectant grin.

Why Hinata was asking _him_ , Asahi couldn’t possibly fathom.  It wasn’t like Asahi had a particularly impressive vertical.  At least not for a volleyball player – he was average at best, really.  Now, Hinata, on the other hand – _that_ was an impressive jump.  He had a better jump than Tsukishima, and Tsukishima had a twenty-five centimetre advantage.

Still.  “I’m just tall,” Asahi explained awkwardly, feeling like a poser and a complete idiot.  Hinata’s face fell, just a little, before sliding into a petulant pout.  Asahi swiftly tried to backpedal – what kind of a _senpai_ was he, going and upsetting his eager _kohai_?  Not a very good one, that’s what.

“No, I mean!  Your technique is, ah, very good, Hinata!  It, uh.”

Asahi floundered for words, for the right words, but that was enough, apparently.  Hinata grinned again, scruffed one toe against the gym floor.  “You’ve been watching my technique?”

“Um, well, I guess… yes?”  Oh no.  Asahi immediately regretted saying anything at all.  Hinata was going to think that was creepy, it _was_ creepy, what kind of person just admitted that they watched their younger teammates like that, everyone was going to think he was some kind of pervert on top of being a thug, but he wasn’t, he definitely wasn’t, not a pervert _or_ a thug. 

Hinata’s cheeks were a little bit red, and Asahi had a brief, random thought about offering to go buy him a Pocari if he was so warm, because that’s what _senpais_ did, right, but just as he opened his mouth – and just as Hinata started to say something – Kageyama barked from across the gym, and Hinata growled right back, and then they were off, their two young prodigies, snapping at each other in that overly competitive way they had, when they weren’t somehow moving in perfect synchrony on or off the court.

What a bizarre dynamic.

“Huh,” Asahi said to himself.  Suga laughed at him.  Suga was always laughing at him.  Or karate-chopping him. 

It occurred to Asahi that his friends might not be the nicest possible people in the world.

But still, he thought, as he watched them teach and encourage their younger teammates as the team practiced and grew together, they were _good_ people.  Solid.  Dependable.  _Senpais_ that the rest of the team could look up to.  He thought that, maybe, he'd like to be like that. 

And then Hinata came into practice one morning with a little scruff of orange sprouting from his chin.  It was barely visible; truthfully, Asahi only noticed when he overheard Nishinoya’s loud comment about it and looked around in time to see Hinata scratching at his face and looking at Nishinoya in that half-defiant-half-self-conscious way that seemed to be his trademark.

“Looks good, Hinata,” Suga called with a grin and an upticked thumb, and Hinata grinned right back, cheeks flushed happily.  His eyes flicked to Asahi and away.  He was probably expecting Asahi to say something.  That was the proper thing to do, wasn’t it?  The expected thing?  Compliment, encourage, that’s what teammates did.  Or tease.  But Asahi didn’t like to tease, he always worried that he’d say something wrong and hurt someone’s feelings, so he settled for a nod and mimicking Suga’s gesture.  Nice and safe.

Hinata fingered the wispy goatee again, obviously pleased with the approval of his _senpais_. 

Suga propped his hands at his waist and laughed.  “You’ve got quite the admirer, eh?”  he said to Asahi, punctuating the statement with a sharp elbow.

“Ouch,” Asahi muttered out of reflex, and then; “What?”

Infuriatingly, Sugawara just winked and jogged off to speak to Yamaguchi, leaving Asahi rubbing his side and frowning in confusion.

 

As if Sugawara’s words had been a catalyst, Asahi started to _notice_ things.  The scraggly little beard was gone a few days later, Hinata muttering something about his mother making him shave it off, but there were other things.  Subtler things, weaving together an unmistakable pattern of behaviours.  It was there in Hinata’s eyes after he scored a point – looking first to Kageyama, and then, always, a glance towards Asahi out of the corner of his eye.  It was the way he’d cheer just a little bit louder for Asahi’s spikes than for anyone else’s, and the way he’d started doing sit-ups and push-ups in the corner before practice – upon closer observation, always the same number Asahi did.  He’d even once caught Hinata trying to pull his hair back into a tiny ponytail. 

Frankly, Asahi didn’t know quite what to make of it.  It was unsettling and it made him nervous, having someone watch his every move like that.  He started fumbling receives when he felt Hinata watching him with that terrifying intensity, and then he’d fumble _more_ receives because he was embarrassed, and then Hinata would yell encouragements in what he probably thought was a helpful way but which really, really wasn’t. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he moaned at his shoes, one day during lunch.  Sugawara slurped pensively on a milk box and Asahi could practically feel Daichi’s eye’s rolling, but he barely cared.  He had a problem and he didn’t know how to deal with it.  He'd changed his mind.  Being looked-up-to was alarming and disconcerting and he didn't quite think he liked it.

“Well,” Suga said, having exhausted the milk box and shoved the straw fully into the carton, “who says you need to do anything?”

“He should,” Daichi said, vaguely disapproving.  “He’s the ace.”

“Our glass-hearted ace with the constitution of a mouse,” Suga agreed.  Asahi could hear the laughter behind his voice, and Daichi made a noise of assent.

“You’re terrible friends,” Asahi muttered.  “I hate you both.”

“No you don’t.”

Asahi just groaned.  That wasn’t wrong.  They all knew it.  He scuffed his toe on the dirt and didn’t say anything.

Apparently he looked even more pathetic than usual, staring at the ground with mingled despondence and panic, because Suga took pity on him a moment later and patted his shoulder – gently, which was weird, and Asahi tensed up a bit because, _what_.

“Really, though,” Suga said, “why does it bother you so much?”

“Why _wouldn’t_ it bother me?”

“You don’t care when Nishinoya fawns over you,” Daichi pointed out. 

Asahi spluttered.  “ _F-fawns?_ ”

“Yeah,” Suga plowed on.  His feet flexed, toes pointed up and heels splayed, and Asahi didn’t have to look up to know that he was leaning back on his elbows and watching the sky.  “Noya adores you.”  Asahi spluttered some more but he couldn’t find the words to respond.  “You know he does.  He left the team for you, Asahi, he, you know.  That’s never bothered you, right?  How is Hinata being, you know, _Hinata_ … how is that different?”

He didn’t know.  He really didn’t know how it was different but it _was_ , it just was.  Nishinoya was loud and affectionate and one of his best friends and that was just how he acted.  Like a firecracker.  He was loud and affectionate with Tanaka, too, and with – and with Hinata.

And Hinata was… if Nishinoya was a firecracker, Hinata was like the sun – bright and cheery and a little overwhelming.  Really overwhelming.  But warm.  Just thinking about him made Asahi feel warm.

“Maybe it’s none of my business.”  Something changed in Suga’s voice, and Asahi didn’t know what it meant but it made him look up.  “But, ah… he’s into guys, you know.”

Something cold jumped violently in Asahi’s stomach, and he curled around it, protective, shoulders hunching like a shield.  “I d-don’t, I mean, why do –”

“Oh please.”  Daichi’s voice was rough and dismissive, just the way he usually spoke to Asahi, which was almost comforting, in a strange sort of way.  “We’ve all seen you staring at Suga’s ass when you don’t think anyone’s looking.”

That was the decided opposite of comforting.  Asahi squeaked. 

Suga laughed and waved a hand.  “Don’t mind, don’t mind.  I know my ass is great.”

Asahi said, “Ah.  Ehh.  Um.” 

And then, because he couldn’t think of any better response, he nodded.  He cleared his throat.  He tried (failed) to stop blushing like some moe anime character.  “How, um,” he asked eloquently.  “About Hinata?”

A spark of mischief flickered across Sugawara’s mouth and he grinned, lopsided, and hummed.  “Overheard him talking with Nishinoya.”

“Ah.”  That explained things.  And then – “Oh no.”

That was it.  That had to be it.  There was no other explanation.  Hinata had a crush.  On him.  Hinata had a crush on him.

“Oh no.”

 

Asahi had to have the worst poker face on the entire team.  Once he realized, he was convinced that everyone else knew, too.  They had to know.  And he wondered what they must think of him – it was some kind of indecent, it must be, to let his younger teammate act like, like _that_.  Like everything Asahi did was somehow amazing even when it really wasn’t – he should have discouraged it, maybe, probably.  But he was the ace, and Hinata wanted to be the ace, and Asahi had the responsibility as his senior to teach him how to be an ace, didn’t he?  How could he do that while trying to keep Hinata at a safe, proper distance?  Could he do that?  He didn’t know what the proper distance even was.  He didn’t have a clue but he had to figure it out, soon, didn’t he?  It didn’t help that they knew he was gay – Suga and Daichi did, at least, and he hadn’t told them, or anyone, but they’d figured it out and maybe someone else had, too, and they must think that he was taking advantage of Hinata, that he was a pervert, they must think he was a pervert, Hinata looked like a little kid, after all, and Asahi didn’t, and oh no, what if people thought he was a pedophile?  He wasn’t a pedophile, right, he was only seventeen, he couldn’t be a pedophile, even if he actually maybe sort of did like –

“Breathe, Asahi,” Suga’s voice said, and Asahi gasped his way back to reality and blinked, wide-eyed, at his friend.  Suga patted him on the back.  “Calm down, you big goofball.  It’s just one block.”

What?  Asahi stared at him, trying to figure out what he could possibly be talking about, before he remembered – oh yeah.  Practice.  They were at practice.  They were going to have a practice game soon, they were preparing for the practice game.  And he’d gotten distracted during a scrimmage because Hinata had jumped to block him, and he’d been focused and his eyes were so intense when he was concentrating, it made Asahi’s heart skip a beat every time he saw it and this time, this time Hinata had locked eyes with him, just for a moment, a second, a very long second, before shifting his focus to the ball, but that second was enough for Asahi to lose his own focus and just a little bit of the power from his spike.  He didn’t exactly remember what had happened, but the ball was on their side of the court and Ennoshita was telling him to “don’t mind,” so he must have been blocked.

By Hinata.

He’d been distracted, by Hinata.  Who had a crush on him. 

Who Asahi was slowly realizing he liked, too.

Oh no.

He needed to figure out what to do about this.  He needed to talk to Suga.  And maybe Daichi.  He needed to think about it, to plan it out, think ahead, puzzle out how to handle all of… this.  He needed a plan.  A strategy.  This had to be handled carefully.

He’d forgotten, somehow, that this was Hinata he was dealing with, and that Hinata was the very antithesis of careful planning – more the incarnation of spontaneity itself.  Which, he had to admit, perhaps had something to be said for it, when after a particularly long and difficult rally during their long-awaited practice match, Asahi finally managed to slam the ball past their sneaky captain’s block, and even before he’d landed back on the court, Hinata had screeched and leapt and wrapped himself around Asahi like an octopus.  That was it, Asahi thought – that was the moment.  And it was so obvious what he had to do.  He caught Hinata against his chest and squeezed, even as he staggered his landing under the extra weight.  Hinata smelled like sweat and rubber and sunshine and when his hands moved uncertainly to clutch at Asahi’s shoulders and he blinked in surprise, it was easy, it was so easy, for Asahi to lean forward, just a little, and touch their foreheads together.

“Nice kill, Ace,” Hinata whispered, and Asahi smiled.

*

A single spike, and they were at the start of something new.

**Author's Note:**

> Talk fandom to me on Twitter at [@paxlegomenon](https://twitter.com/paxlegomenon).


End file.
